Zoomies by Inwards

Inwards, the project of musician Kristian Shelley, moves into 2025 with a high-energy collection of upbeat, experimental dance tunes inspired by our canine counterparts.

Entitled Zoomies, his third LP brings together 11 tracks, all named in memory of ancestors from the family tree of his beloved Golden Retriever.

With its consistently higher energy and more intense sound than his previous releases, the Zoomies project started as a way for Shelley to transition into making more danceable music that he could bring out in his live performances.

“But I was unable to avoid the classic Inwards weirdness,” he says, “so they have ended up somewhere in between experimental Inwardsness and club-based bangers.”

He nicknamed these more uptempo tracks “zoomies” and loosely planned a series of singles or EPs around the concept. Producing them between 2019 and 2023, with no urgency or deadlines, he says it was just “a natural flow of making tracks, trying them out in the live set, seeing if they fitted with the other zoomies.”

It became clear that Zoomies was meant to be an album when the tracks all seemed to belong and flow together. Alongside this, a wider concept began to emerge, forming links between what was once just a fun one-word reference to the cartoonish antics of his canine pals and a deeper, more spiritual exploration of the history and lore around them.

The album’s striking artwork, inspired by the folkloric canine spirit, digs into the theme. “I wanted it to have a feeling almost like it was made of stained glass, like you might see in a place of worship or in a painting of a deity.”

“The album is dedicated to Keira, who left us in 2022. Many of the tracks were made in her presence,” he says, revealing more about the catharsis he gained from this project. “I found her family tree, which we were given when we first got her, and I started to match the names of her ancestors to the different zoomie vibes I had made. The family tree ended with Keira, so I feel like this album serves as a relic in memory of her and her ancestors.”

When it came to writing and recording, he went more “in the box” with these tracks—less hardware and more computer-based tools such as FM synthesis. His previous tracks were conceptually free-ranging but made within a framework of practical limitations in terms of hardware and instruments, time, and place. For Zoomies, he started with the thematic framework, the clear goal, and set about exploring it with a limitless sonic range.

"A childlike sound-world hides a slightly unnerving, psychedelic undertone, simultaneously pleasing restless feet and hazy minds."

Kristian Shelley